LOVESalem: Living Our Values Environmentally in Salem.~~~
Oregon-izing to Put People Before Cars ~~~
Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay.

Sunday, March 5, 2017

Find out How Oregonians' Votes for President Can Count Again

The Oregon Legislature is all ready to join the National Popular Vote (NPV) compact, an agreement between the states that will retain the Electoral College but fix the dangerous design defect that produced a so-called president who lost by millions of votes.

All ready except for one Senator: Salem's Peter Courtney, Senate President. He's fine with having Oregonian's wishes ignored and having a system that lets reactionary billionaires start out with a head-start towards installing their preferred candidate for the presidency every four years.

The Electoral College was always 100% about slavery and giving certain people -- white, rural people -- more power than anyone else in deciding who should be president.

The entire reason the Electoral College was created was to protect the slave states from an abolitionist president, while allowing them to disenfranchise most of their residents; further, they got to count enslaved people as 3/5ths of a person in the census, which determines the seats for the state in the House of Representatives in Congress.

You can no more separate the Electoral College from its roots in preserving the disproportionate power of white rural votes than you can separate the purr from a cat.

The whole point of using this bizarre anachronism is, as it was before the Civil War, to disadvantage the people more urban regions (the norther, free states) while unfairly advantaging voters in rural states (the South). It's the most un-American idea in the Constitution, in that it is entirely about making "one person, one vote" into pure fiction, as the Electoral Collect means that the weight of your vote for president -- the only national elected office -- depends entirely on whether you are in a more or less populous state. If you are a rural voter in an empty state, your vote counts many times more than it would if you were in a high population state.

The Electoral College is now not just stupid, it's a pathological and dangerous threat to the American Republic in the age of nuclear weapons. That's because its terrible defect -- the consequence of electing a popular vote loser -- is now dormant no more; twice since 2000, the popular vote winner was not elected and the electoral vote loser was.

Worse, the arguments in favor of the Electoral College have now been clearly shown to be absurd.

The Electoral College doesn't protect against the unqualified populist, it is what allowed the unqualified populist to use over-weighted rural votes to win the office despite having millions more Americans opposed to his election than in favor of it.

The scholarly rationalization ("the substitution of a good reason for the real reason") was always that the Founding Fathers feared a demagogue and a candidate for president who would whip up popular sentiment against the rich and powerful and convince the people to give him power, which he would then use to benefit himself and his friends instead of governing in the national interest. This is precisely what has happened now, in this most dangerous time.

The only reason Oregon hasn't joined the NPV compact is the President of the Oregon Senate, Peter Courtney, Salem's state senator. Come to Louck's Auditorium next Sunday at 3:30 and hear more about NPV and what you can do to help get Oregon into the right column of YES states.

National Popular Vote: What is it? Why is it needed?

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Description

Join John Koza, founder of the National Popular Vote, and
local advocates to learn more about the National Popular Vote Interstate
Compact and how we can pass it in Oregon. The NPVIC would ensure that
the winner of the popular vote wins the presidency.

NPVIC would not
abolish the Electoral College and would only go into effect once states
representing at least 270 Electoral College votes have enacted the
compact.

Currently, 10 states representing 165 Electoral College votes
have entered the NPVIC.

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WORD

Communities exist for the health and enjoyment of those who live in them,

not for the convenience of those who drive through them, fly over them, or exploit their real estate for profit.

-- Ted Roszak, "Where the Wasteland Ends"

"Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us." (Henrik Tikkanen)

"Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends." (Lewis Mumford)Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay

If you are thinking a year ahead, plant seeds. If you are thinking 10 years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking 100 years ahead, educate the people.Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it’s my responsibility to make it better. (Gov. Tom McCall)

Why This Blog?

Jan 19, 2008: LOVESalem reaches the web, bringing a vitally needed message to Oregon's capital city: We must Oregon-ize to put the needs of people before the needs of cars. This requires that we live our environmental values -- that we LOVE (Live Our Values Environmentally) Salem -- by working to stop the Sprawl Machine.

The Sprawl Machine is a ravenous beast that feeds on green space, close-in neighborhoods, and property taxes and that excretes monstrous, ugly road projects that pollute the air, increase mortality and morbidity, promote climate change, weaken families and neighborhoods, and help weaken the social fabric and civic participation.

The Sprawl Machine works by constantly luring its prey with promises that the problems created by cars can be addressed by doing more of the same -- building more lanes, more bridges, consuming ever more money. In other words, the Sprawl Machine promises that we can keep doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result this time.

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